


Especially Now

by QueenOfSloths



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Before Battle, F/M, Godswood, Love Confessions, Mild Hurt/Comfort, POV Sansa Stark, Post-season 7, Sort Of, post-parentage reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-18 00:06:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18109283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfSloths/pseuds/QueenOfSloths
Summary: Jon finds out who his parents were and he doesn't take it very well. Sansa attempts to make him feel better only to come to a shocking realisation about her own feelings.





	Especially Now

**Author's Note:**

> (This is a product of too many anaesthetics/painkillers. Tooth extraction is a bitch.)

It’s been three days since they learned the truth, and Jon doesn’t seem to be getting better. The Others are closer every day, Bran says, but Jon is either staring at the walls during meetings or he’s disappearing for hours, maybe longer. Even Daenerys Targaryen grows suspicious.

„Lady Sansa, forgive me,” she interrupts her once, smiling kindly. Littlefinger was right, she is the most stunning woman Sansa has ever laid eyes on. The worry suits her, too. Her face becomes softer, almost girly, a shadow of who they all were before the world forced them to grow up. „There are some final arrangements that we need to consult with your brother, but he is nowhere to be found. Would you please ask him to visit Lord Tyrion’s chambers as soon as you see him?”

It’s not even an order, it’s a plea. The Dragon Queen is concerned—and so is Sansa.

She gives Daenerys a brief nod and gets back to her solar to put on her coat. There is only one place where he would seek solace other than the crypts—and he’s definitely not in the crypts, Arya’s already checked.

It’s not possible to sneak up on somebody in the godswood, the snow crunching under Sansa’s feet announces her presence long before she reaches a hunched, miserable creature sitting on one of the roots. He knows that he’s no longer alone, she takes it from the way his shoulders tense up under a leather jerkin.

“If you want to freeze yourself to death, could you please do it after the Night King is defeated?” Sansa asks, and it’s supposed to sound playful but comes out almost mean. She bites her lip, comes a few steps closer, and then covers him with another fur, the one she’s been carrying through Winterfell’s courtyards, raising curious glances.

She lingers a while longer with her hand on Jon’s shoulder. “I’m with you,” she wants to say, but somehow the reassurance refuses to form. They’ve been telling him the same thing for days, why would he decide to listen to her now? He needs to be alone, she knows that, but unfortunately, it’s the last thing they should let him do. They are his family and nothing will change it.

Jon doesn’t move for another two or three minutes, and Sansa begins to consider releasing his shoulder and retreating to the safety of her solar when suddenly he raises his hand and places it over Sansa’s. She’s got her gloves on, but even through thick leather she can feel the icy touch. She glances down and realises that his hand went almost blue from the cold.

“Jon!” she yells at him—or maybe just whispers, it’s all very quiet around here, she wouldn’t want to disturb the gods—and crunches down in front of Jon to force him to look at her. “You need to snap out of this,” she says, a tinge of rebuke in her voice. “We need you. Not in some fight against the dead that we may as well lose even with you leading our armies. We need you as our family. Arya and Bran need you. _I need you._ ”

Jon finally looks at her—and there’s so much pain in his eyes, it almost physically hurts Sansa to see him like that. She takes both of his hands in hers—partly to make him listen to what she has to say more carefully, the touch always seems to work magic between them, and partly to warm them up—and tugs them under her furs, close to her heart.

“I’m sorry that it happened, Jon. I truly am. No one should have to find out such things after years of carefully building their identity around some scraps that turned out to be lies. You might think that I have no idea of what I speak, but I too was always proven to be wrong about everything I wanted to be. It’s offensive to compare these two, I know, but please take it from the deepest, most honest part of my soul: you might not be our brother, but you will always be our family. There’s only four of us left, you and I, and Arya, and Bran. We are the pack. We are a family. _We are the Starks._ ”

“I’m not a Stark,” he says grimly with a hoarse voice. Sansa is certain he’s been crying for the better part of the last few days. She’d do anything to make him understand.

“You are,” she insists. “Don’t be ridiculous. As far as I’m concerned this only proves you are more of a Stark than you’ve been thus far.” Jon doesn’t look away for a second, as if searching for something in her eyes that would make him believe her words. He seems so lost, she just wants to lock him in a tight embrace and never let go. “I know my mother was never kind to you. Your identity was a hurtful lie she died believing, and it breaks my heart to imagine how different our lives might have been in different circumstances. I hope you forgive her, and I hope she forgives Father for what he put her through. But Father… He loved you with all his heart. If you think even for a minute that Ned Stark wasn’t your true parent—” Jon squeezes her hand tight as if he’s clinging to this declaration. “I don’t care whose blood you share. Father risked everything he held dear to give you a good life, to protect you from King Robert’s wrath, from all the enemies who might have come for your head, had they learned the truth. He raised you as his own, and I’m sure he died regretting that the truth was dying with him. You are a Stark on your father’s side, and now you’re a Stark on your mother’s side, too. In fact, you’re more of a Stark than any of us. Arya, Bran, and I are all half-Stark and half-Tully,” she smiles.

And Jon looks at her for a moment with bright eyes—Sansa thinks it might be tears forming in them but it’s something else entirely, something thrilling, challenging even. And then he smiles back. It’s weak and lasts only a mere second, but it’s undeniably there. Jon pulls her closer and buries his face in her furs.

“You don’t have to be kind to me,” he murmurs.

Sansa rolls her eyes.

“Of course I don’t _have to_ be kind to you, you dummy. I choose to be kind to you because I love you,” she says angrily, and to make her point stronger places a soft kiss to the top of his head, not unlike the one he once gifted to her.

They stay like that for a while, hugging tightly, their arms tangled together, Jon breathing into Sansa’s neck and Sansa stroking the top of his head with her nose, until it dawns on them how strange they must look from the outside.

Well, it certainly dawns on Sansa, because when she suddenly pulls back, Jon seems to have been taken by surprise.

“I’m sorry,” he says with a mortified expression, “was I making you uncomfortable?”

“Uncomfortable?” She blinks at him. “Of course not. Why would you make me uncomfortable?”

There’s a long, silent moment when Jon studies her face carefully as if it is the first time he ever sees her. Then he lets go of her hands and hides his own under his cloak.

“If I asked you a question… Would you answer truthfully?”

It should probably offend her that he would think otherwise, but she decides not to comment on that. He’s way too vulnerable to deal with her wounded pride just yet.

Instead, Sansa simply nods.

It seems to be as good an encouragement as any, because Jon makes this stupid face which he uses when he’s being stubborn: like when he insisted on going to a fight with just a bunch of men, or when he declared that he would be riding south to convince Daenerys Targaryen to fight for them. Only this time it’s about something much more personal, she can feel it.

Jon lowers his eyes almost as if he can’t look at Sansa while he asks.

“About what you said earlier.”

Sansa expects him to continue, but that’s all she seems to be getting.

“I said many things, Jon,” she sighs.

“You said you loved me.” _Ah, that._ “Why?”

His voice is shaking, he sounds almost too afraid to be hopeful. It breaks her heart.

“What do you mean _why_? I said it because it is how I feel. You are the most important person in the entire world to me.”

Although Sansa has never wondered about it before, she knows in her heart that it’s true. She loves Arya and Bran more than she loves herself, but Jon is the first person she ever loved for who he was and what they shared together, not someone whom she was conditioned to love no matter what. Maybe it was lady Catelyn’s doing. _Maybe it was for the better._

Jon still refuses to look her in the eye.

“Even now?” he asks quietly. “Even after it’s been revealed that I’m not your brother?”

“ _Especially now,_ ” she answers without really giving it much thought. Seeing that he finally raises his head and stares at her, she gives him an encouraging smile and stands up. Turning to get back to the castle, she hears him whisper:

“ _Sansa._ ”

Something about the tone of his voice stops her in her tracks. She doesn’t turn back to him, hit by freezing wind from the North. For a short moment Sansa fears that they’re nearing the end at last, that Winterfell might be under attack, but then she hears Jon’s pleading words:

“ _Especially_ now?” There’s a thunder coming from afar. Or maybe it’s just the beating of Sansa’s heart? “Why _especially_?”

And at this moment, witnessed by the old gods, Sansa finally realises.

She loves Jon, yes.

But she’s also _in love_ with Jon.

A terrifying awakening, and one that is followed by the sound of horns from the gates. “They’re here,” Sansa thinks, and Jon looks at her for the last time before he grabs her hand and they run together towards the castle. “Please,” she prays to the gods, “please let us live, so that I may tell him one day.”


End file.
